


Numb

by Dr_Wahoo



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Angst, Experimentation, Gen, Megatron Is Not A Happy Camper, One-Shot, Pre-2007 Film, Unethical Experimentation, violence against robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26819719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Wahoo/pseuds/Dr_Wahoo
Summary: "Megatron is not numb.If he were, he wouldn’t feel the ice packed around him. He wouldn’t feel it dig and prickle into the seams of his armor. He wouldn’t feel the cold stinging at his joints and faceplates. He wouldn’t feel his inability to move, to curl even a single claw. And that, somehow, burns worse than the cold."---------------An account of Megatron's time frozen at Hoover Dam.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13





	Numb

**Author's Note:**

> Several months ago, I watched the 2007 Transformers film for the first time. It left me feeling disoriented and exhausted, like I'd been through the spin cycle of a washing machine. But one thing stood out to me: Megatron and his story. As I saw other people point out, he awoke speaking English... meaning he was aware the entire time Sector Seven experimented on him in the ice. 
> 
> That realization refused to leave me alone until, over the course of one afternoon, I finally hammered this out. This is my first time going all-in on angst, so please let me know how I did! Any feedback is welcome. :)

Megatron is not numb. 

If he were, he wouldn’t feel the ice packed around him. He wouldn’t feel it dig and prickle into the seams of his armor. He wouldn’t feel the cold stinging at his joints and faceplates. He wouldn’t feel his inability to move, to curl even a single claw. And that, somehow, burns worse than the cold. 

There are other things that burn. The sensations start as little brushes, little slides against his frame. Fleshy appendages then scrape their nails over sensors and pry panels apart. They yank on exposed cabling, slicking his internals with sweat and oils. Their touch crawls over and _in_ him like insect legs. Moments before it all overwhelms him, the appendages lift away. They leave him to wait and cool in the ice. Then, they return with blades.

He sees none of this. His optics have been offline for awhile now — cycles, joors, or even vorns. His broken chronometer tells him nothing. But his audials and sensors tell him everything, whether he wants it or not. 

_Do I want it?_ he asks himself. Before, he slumbered in the ice. The impact of his crash knocked him offline. Here and now, these violations fall shy of doing the same. Pain keeps him aware, and that awareness brings more hurt.  Case in point: he hears the aliens’ chatter. Their language is crude, but all the easier to learn. Soon, he understands his first sentence. 

“Next vivisection should be Tuesday, so pencil it in on your calendars!” 

It takes more time and context clues to understand “vivisection.” He then knows _they_ know he is alive. They know what they are doing to him. 

Another time, he hears one ask, “You sure this is worth it?” The alien is sitting on his shoulder, digging a blade through wiring. He focuses on its words rather than the sharp sensation.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” another splutters, this one close to his left audial.

The first alien shifts on his shoulder. “I... I don’t know. It’s just — it can’t be cheap. Y’know, keeping the guy frozen here like this?”

“It’s not, but look at what we’ve already made. Reverse-engineering stuff off him is leaping our tech into the future! That covers the costs of this and then some.”

“Well, when you put it like that...”

And in an instant, he knows they do not care. They only care about advancing their own technology. They don’t even bother to do it themselves. Instead, they pick him apart because they can. Their laziness and curiosity is their cruelty. 

The first time the aliens make another being, he knows it. He senses the flare of a nascent spark, recognizes the tang of their metals. His knee throbs where the aliens took the metals in question. Their coding reaches out to his, using something that wasn't there before, and finds a match. Everything settles with a click: they are  made  out of _him._

Megatron has no word in the Cybertronian language to describe what this means, what they are to him. Nothing like it has ever happened in their history. His processor almost blanks in shock at this data. 

The newspark nudges him, brushing him with tendrils of a fragile essence. He shakes himself out of his stupor to respond. Something long-buried and suppressed in his code stirs like a neglected, creaky joint. It laces his wordless answer with reassurance and warmth. 

_Scared,_ they tell him.  _Scared-confused-want-protection-want-you._

_I am here,_ he says back. He tests the strength of this strange, unprecedented new bond. It floats his words down the tender and rippling currents between them. 

_Feel-but-no-see. Where? Where-you?_

_I... I am in a different room. I cannot move, but I can feel you as well._

_Designation?_

_I am—_

A chill creeps into the bond. The streams stutter between them, clouding with a blizzard of panicked static.  _Strange-beings! No-no-stay-away! Protector! Help-help-help—!_

The bond goes silent. Megatron shouts down it, only for it to snap with a  crack. It dies still ringing with the confusion, fear and then pain of the newspark. 

For the first time since his imprisonment, his core temperature rises. He tries to roar. He tries to shake his frame, to rattle it with the outrage erupting in his spark. He is cold and burning up and less numb than ever, but he is still as trapped as before.

And then, to his dawning horror and rage, the aliens do it all again. 

Again and again, new lives kindle in pieces stolen from him. Again, they cry to him and again, he answers. The only difference is, he tries to soothe them enough that they do not even feel their deaths. It is all he can do. Again and again, his spark seethes with hatred he once reserved for only one other.  His spark all but boils when he realizes how the aliens bring them to life. Parts of his body forms theirs, but a spark takes more than that. It takes time to recognize the resonance to their sparks — the resonance, he realizes, that has surrounded him this entire time.

The Allspark. It is somewhere in this same facility. 

He knows once he overhears some aliens discussing it. They are using it in these experiments, testing it on the technology they’ve pried from him and giving it life. The same lives, they admit, that they kill soon after. 

The object of war, of his quest, of Cybertron’s hope for revival, is here. It is within his grasp. And he cannot take it. He can only sit and watch aliens _waste_ it.

It is easy for him to fall back on anger and hatred. It is all he believes he is. It is all he has, frozen and at the mercy of these vile little aliens. He lets it swell inside him until he burns not with the cold, but an inferno nothing less than white-hot. His processor bows to the whispers of ghosts and occupies itself with his fury.

Sometimes, his mind turns back to that question:  _Do I want it? Do I wish to be aware of all these things?_ He decides each time he still loathes it. He hates the cycle of pain keeping him aware, and the awareness stinging in of itself. But awareness also comes with memory. He remembers every tool they use on him. His processor etches a map of every wound, every scar they leave on his body. His spark keeps all the tattered ends of bonds with tiny lives snuffed out too soon. 

He is never numb. And when the alarms blare and the ice, at _last,_ falls off him in sheets, he can relish the feeling. He can call on the memories and outrage in his spark.

He is Megatron. He is now neither numb nor cold, and he will let the world know it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I don't know if anyone still reads or writes stuff for the Bayverse anymore (since I am over ten years late to the party, as usual), so I doubly appreciate you for making it this far. Comments, kudos and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated! 
> 
> Thank you again, and stay safe out there!


End file.
